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Fresh

The Tomatometer is 60% or higher.

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The Tomatometer is 59% or lower.

Certified Fresh

The Tomatometer is 75% or higher, with 40 reviews (movies) or 20 reviews (TV). At least 5 reviews from Top Critics.

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Movie Info

Amélie and The Da Vinci Code star Audrey Tautou stars as legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel in this biopic penned by director Anne Fontaine and screenwriter Camille Fontaine in collaboration with Christopher Hampton. Based on the Chanel biography L'Irrégulière (The Nonconformist) by author Edmonde Charles-Roux, Coco Avant Chanel features dresses from the Chanel collection. House of Chanel art director Karl Lagerfeld also steps onboard to supervise the creation of accessories and costumes. ~
Jason Buchanan, Rovi… More

This guilty pleasure costume drama leaves you wanting to know more about this extraordinary woman considered one of the most influential in the 20th century. Let's hope that Fontaine can do a follow-up with "After" in the title.

Earlier in the year we had Julia Childs, two weeks ago we has Amelia Earhart, and this week we have Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Who's next? Rachel Ray and her journey to invent edible crayons? Hannah Montana's battle against Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Audience Reviews for Coco Before Chanel

½

Another biopic of the fashion template Coco Chanel, this French language film romanticizes the life of a woman who favored simplicity in her style, leading to a feminization of rebellion in the fashion world, and in women's every day life.Still, though Chanel was a prominent figure, she is misrepresented time and time again as a romantic, a career woman, and a realist, when in reality she prostituted herself, and worked as a Nazi sympathizer and traitor towards the French. This inaccuracy, though blaring, didn't annoy me as much as the way this film is plotted, focusing on Chanel's early life, before fame came to her. Chanel is never seen past the thirties, transfixed into an immortal portrait of a rags to riches story. Chanel's life broadened so much more in the coming years, and it would have been nice to watch Tatou, such a resilient figure in French cinema, overcome the issues of Chanel's youth and rise to the occasion as a sort of matriarch to the female French population. We see a fragment of this at the end, but never the true extent of her success, the transformation she goes through to be a powerhouse, no longer the fragile little orphan of her prior youth. Tatou, such a great beauty and gamine presence, is so amazingly strong and independent minded in her take on the giant, but I wish there wasn't so much emphasis on Boy Capel throughout, and more on her actual life. This all felt like an ill fated love affair, when Chanel actually had many lovers in her lifetime, including Igor Stravinsky. It was beautifully shot and acted, I just believe the execution had something to be desired.

Beautifully shot and a good introduction into the early years of Coco Chanel. I have to admit I knew nothing at all about her. Audrey Tautou suits the role so well, I could now not imagine her any other way. A good true story about a strong and inspirational woman who rose way above her circumstances.

I was very intrigued at the idea of watching this, first of all, I love Audrey Tautou. Second I love that period. Thirdly, I do love the sharp simplicity of Chanel's designs.I love the production design. The costumes were gorgeous and the cinematography was impeccable. But I think some of the pacing within the story lacked. I didn't even mind the gigantic jumps in time towards the end. But it didn't quite have a compelling nature as we saw her straddled between the two important men in her life (no rude pun intended there).However, other than that it was stylish and gorgeous. I do wish that we could have seen more of the visual style influence. Chanel's style was very clean cut, as opposed to the natural Rococco-ish fashion before it and I would have like to see what inspired that when it was certainly not the rage.

The lovely, charming Audrey Tautou has graduated into a full-blown, versatile actress. This is a film that challenges her to move beyond the mannerisms and characterizations that won her international acclaim, and she responds. She creates a hard-nosed feminist, whose smile, though still delightful, fails to predicate itself on its ability to be enjoyed by others; it's a smile for its own sake. This performance makes me think she'd be a perfect Dagny Taggart.The script and the story are less compelling than Tautou, and we never really see Chanel creating, forming, or even the slight burgeoning of the company that would bear her name. This seems like a let-down, and there was certainly room for this story within the film.Overall, the film's star carries it and makes up for whatever flaws the script and director may present.